


The Brightest Son

by diablo77



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Chaptered, F/M, Megstiel - Freeform, Work In Progress, also Cas can fly again, because Meg could totally be alive, canon divergent from season 11, not really au though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:15:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diablo77/pseuds/diablo77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Revived from what seemed certain death, Meg gives birth to the Pupil, a mythical half-demon/half-angel child who holds the keys to both Heaven and Hell and is hunted by both. While Meg runs from the forces of Hell that want her dead, it's up to Castiel to protect the baby... with a little help from his friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

                Meg slumped against the hard metal door-frame of the bunker, her hand clamped down on the slow seeping from her abdomen. Human blood felt different somehow, she thought: thinner, more lightweight. Like it could all just pour out of her like water from a cup. She watched it trickle between her fingers, feeling the dull pulse from the opening her hand barely covered.

            From the other side of the door, Sam Winchester gave her an incredulous stare. “You want us to turn you _back_ into a demon?” he said, his eyes narrowing.

            “ _Want_ isn’t exactly the word I’d use here,” Meg snapped back. She thought back to how she’d awakened behind a Dumpster in that alley, cold and damp, the ache in her gut slowly spreading as she came to. She had been sure Crowley would kill her when he drove that blade into her, but as she became aware of a new kind of pain dancing on the edges of her nerves, she’d understood. Quick and painless wasn’t his style. The blade had been cursed, made to strip her of her powers and leave her here, in this body, mortal. This body that would die an excruciating death and take her with it.

            “She’s gone,” she said now. “The girl I took this body from? She couldn’t survive that. It’s just me in here now, and I can’t hold on much longer. I can feel it.” She pressed her hand deeper into the wound, staunching the flow of blood only slightly. “I can’t go back to Hell – as a _soul_? Do you know what they’ll do to me?” She directed this at Dean, standing behind his brother in the doorway. “ _You_ know.”

He looked away. “Yeah. Yeah, I do,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair.  “But even if we _wanted_ to do it,” he said, “what makes you think we _can_? We’re in the business of ganking demons, not making them.”

            “All I know is, if anyone can do it, it’s you two,” Meg said. “I’ve heard things. I know you can work spells in the other direction. And I know you’ve got, like, every book ever written on demons in here.” She cut her eyes around the cavernous bunker with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on every wall. “If there’s something that can help me, you’ll find it.”

            Sam still looked suspicious. “How did you even find this place?”

            “It wasn’t easy. Nobody’s talking to me.” Meg felt a ray of pain dig in deeper, and she sucked her breath slowly through her teeth until it passed. “Which means,” she said pointedly, “nobody’s following me. If that’s what you’re thinking.”

            “I’m thinking this place is warded against everything.”

            “But that’s just it. I’m not a _thing_ anymore.” Meg managed a weak smile that quickly twisted into a grimace. “And as a human? Turns out I’m pretty badass. I might’ve made a good hunter.” She tried to sidle through the door, but neither brother budged from the frame. “Come on,” she said. “I saved both your asses, and it’s about to cost me mine. That’s gotta be worth something, right? Some kind of hunter’s code?”

            “She’s got a point,” Dean said. Sam sighed and stepped slightly aside, so that Meg still had to turn sideways and squeeze past. She understood: it wasn’t a full welcome. She didn’t blame them.

            Sam’s face softened slightly when he saw the full damage in the light inside the bunker. He sighed. “You need to lie down,” he said. He nodded in the direction of an open door leading into another book-lined study. “There’s a couch in there. You can rest while we work on this.” He scanned the stacks of books the same way Meg had moments earlier, as if he were seeing them for the first time. “This may take a while.”

            Meg settled herself onto the old, soft couch and covered herself with a blanket she found draped over the back. The chill of her damp hair and clothes melted away as she listened through the open door to the brothers’ conversation as they cracked open laptops, pulled dusty books from shelves. She smiled to herself at the familiarity of this scene, one she’d witnessed many times, both when she was on their side and fighting against them. Being part of it again made the world feel real to her, reminded her that for the moment, at least, she was alive. Wrapped in the sounds of their muffled voices, she let herself drift away.

                                                                        ***

            When she came around again, Meg could still hear the voices weaving in and out of the doorway to the study, still indistinct, layered over each other and barely above whispers. Then, louder, Sam’s voice: “I think I’ve found something.”

            Meg watched through the doorway as Dean rose from his place at the other side of the table and came to look over his brother’s shoulder. “Seriously?”

            “Well, it’s not specific to demons. But this says there’s a spell that can reverse any transformation.” Sam pointed between the crumbling leather bindings of an ancient text. Their voices grew muffled again, and then Dean appeared in the doorway.

            “We need some of your blood,” he said.

            Meg shifted the hands still clasped at her waist, felt the slick of blood still steadily seeping against them. “Well, that’ll be easy.” She tried to laugh, but it hurt too much.

            Dean knelt in front of her, cupping an old brass chalice in his hands, and moved the blanket aside. Meg lifted her shirt and moved her hands from her wound, letting the blood run freely into the cup. “That’s enough,” Dean said, and she closed one of her hands back over the hole, quickly pulling the hem of her shirt back down to cover it with the other. Dean looked down into the cup, then back up into Meg’s face. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

            “As opposed to dying a slow and painful death? Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

He clicked his tongue and shrugged, in the way that she knew meant he cared more than he wanted to let on. “Okay then.” He disappeared into the other room with the chalice of blood. Meg lay back on the couch again, smelling the matches being struck in the other room – how funny that they smelled like sulfur, the way hunters always said demons smelled – and listening to the brothers chant, “ _Quid factum sit infectum._ _Sit mutatur quid sit iterum mutatur. Sit autem sermo dissipatus eris. Sit deperditi reuertamur._ ” Meg felt a crackling energy sear through her bones, as if she were burning from the inside out. The pull from within her was strong, but so was the resistance against it: she felt tugged in opposing directions, as if some part of her was trying to peel itself loose. Beams like black lightning shot through the room, through her body, entering her at all points and connecting somewhere deep in her center. She felt herself lift from the sofa and hover above it, suspended in the beams. Her hands gripped the place where the blade had gone in, but as she fought to secure the opening, she felt it knit closed under her fingers.

            The bolts dropped Meg back to the couch, where she sat up, gasping. She could feel it. Her old self had returned. She swung her legs around the side of the couch and planted her feet on the bare wood-plank floor. She lifted her shirt. It was still crusted with blood, but the skin below it was smooth, unscarred, as if nothing had ever happened there.

Unbeknownst to Meg, outside of the study, the boys were no longer alone. “Where did you find that spell?” a deep voice asked from the doorway. Sam and Dean turned to see Castiel standing there. Their friend the rogue angel had a way of showing up any time they pulled something seriously dangerous, or seriously stupid. This time, though, he was too late to stop them.

“Cas,” Dean said, only half surprised to see him there.

“That’s powerful magic,” Castiel went on. “The kind angels can sense when it’s being worked, anywhere. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Dean tried to laugh it off. “Of course we do,” he said, but he and Sam exchanged a look over Castiel’s shoulder that said maybe they weren’t so sure.

At that moment, the study door creaked wide open. All three of them turned to see Meg standing there, leaning against the doorframe even though she was sure she could stand without a problem. Hell, she could probably turn cartwheels.

There was nothing in her face of the sly sarcasm that was her trademark. Meg’s expression was open, vulnerable, almost innocent. “Cas?”

His eyes widened. “ _Meg?!_ ” He stepped through the doorway to meet her, his disbelief showing all over his face. He reached for the gleaming silver blade holstered at his hip, no aggression in his posture but an undisguised air of defense.

Meg raised her hands, palms up as if in surrender. “It’s really me, Clarence.”

The pet name made Castiel drop his guard, retract his hand from the hilt of the blade. Meg shot a look at the brothers standing just outside the door. “Can you give us a minute?”

Dean shrugged as if to say “Sure,” even as Sam glared at him, shaking his head in tiny jerks. Ignoring both of them, as she’d planned to do anyway, Meg pulled the door closed behind them.

Alone together in the darkened study, Meg and Castiel stared at each other for a moment. Finally, he spoke: “How are you ali-”

Before he could finish forming the words, Meg flew into his arms and kissed him hard, her body pressed tightly against his. In his surprise, Castiel lost his balance and staggered backward, crashing into a bookshelf. The shelf collapsed sideways, books avalanching onto the floor.

***

Outside the study’s closed door, Dean Winchester looked at his brother. “That didn’t sound good.”

Sam shook his head. “No. No it did not.”

There was another crash from somewhere deeper in the study. “Think we should check on them?”

“God, no.”

***

When Meg finally came up for air, Cas’s face was still perplexed. “I had been thinking about doing that for a long time,” she said. “Wanted to make sure I didn’t miss my chance. The whole dying thing will do that to you.”

“But how-” Castiel tried again.

Meg pressed herself close again and smiled. “I wasn’t finished,” she whispered, and kissed him again. This time he kissed back. She slipped her hands inside his coat and guided it off his shoulders and into a puddle on the floor, tugging at his necktie, pulling him in closer as she wrestled it loose. To Meg’s surprise, Cas started to move with her. He lifted her body as if it weighed nothing, sitting her on the desk next to the collapsed shelves. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she grabbed the hem of her blood-crusted shirt and rolled it over her head. Feeling her bare skin touch him made her catch her breath, and as she looked down, Meg noticed with confusion that her jeans were open, despite neither of them having touched them. When she looked up and saw the way Castiel was holding his hand, she couldn’t help laughing.

“Not like that,” she said. “Use your hands.” She grabbed his hands in hers and moved them to her hips, fastened them around the newly loosened denim waistband of her jeans. He tightened his grip and pulled them down and off, in the process knocking a desk lamp and clock to the floor where they shattered in a rain of glass fragments. Meg felt the desk tilting as if it were about to give way, and before she could say anything, Cas seemed to sense it too and pulled her closer to him before throwing her down onto the same couch where she had been lying not long ago, recovering, in what felt like another lifetime.

The force was immense. He had an angel’s strength, and was used to throwing bodies around when it was necessary, but never for this reason. Meg landed so hard on the couch that its legs buckled and its frame split into pieces. The cushions sprawling on the floor, Meg laughed again from her place in their softness even as Castiel’s face became drawn with concern. “I’m sorry,” he stammered.

“It’s okay,” she said, reaching out and pulling him down on top of her. They sank into the torn cushions and splintered beams, moving together in a rhythm that shook the wreckage around them. Meg started to feel waves rising inside her like tiny sparks, and she rolled them over, straddled him, riding the waves as the intensity built to where she almost couldn’t bear it, squeezing her legs tightly to his sides as she began to feel his body shuddering underneath hers. Just as the stars exploded into broken glass and holy fire and a tidal wave of intensity that seemed to break everything they hadn’t already broken, burn it all to the ground, a flash of green light shot from somewhere in the room. It was a near-blinding light, the green of radioactivity and otherworldly energy, and Meg tried to shake the feeling, but she could swear the flash had started somewhere in the infinitesimal space between their bodies.

***

From outside the study, the flash looked something like a bomb going off. Every crack under and around the door glowed iridescent green, rays shooting through the open spaces and casting the dimly lit room outside in neon. Just as quickly, it disappeared, leaving Sam and Dean staring at each other. “Did you see that?”

“What the hell _was_ that?”

Dean rose and pounded on the closed door.

***

Hearing the insistent banging on the door, Meg sighed and rose. She found Castiel’s overcoat lying on the floor, and draped it around herself, holding it closed at the waist with one hand as she opened the door with the other. “Yeah?” she said, swinging the door open. Seeing her, both brothers looked away in perfect sync, hands shielding their eyes. “Oh, God,” Sam muttered.

“That green thing,” Dean said, still not looking directly at her. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” Meg said. “I barely noticed it. I’m sure it’s nothing.” She closed the door behind her and retreated back into the shadows of the room. Of course it wasn’t nothing; she knew that. None of them ever caught that kind of a break. It was always something. But right now, she didn’t want to think about it. She just wanted to crawl back into the only arms she’d ever felt safe in, even if only for a moment longer before it all went to hell again.

Lying down next to Cas on the destroyed couch, she traced a finger over his chest, unable to keep the laugh out of her voice. “Where,” she asked, “did you learn _that_?”

“From my would-be assassin. It’s a long story.”

“I bet.” Meg sighed deeply and shrugged off the coat, pulling it over the both of them like a blanket while she draped a leg around Castiel’s waist as if she could pin him there, keep this moment just a little longer before whatever was coming to take it away could catch them.

***

“That is something I will never be able to un-see,” Sam said outside the door, as Dean said, “You know we have to burn everything in that room now, right?”

***

Behind the door, Meg lay perfectly still, still feeling splintered stars shoot through her body. Under Cas’s coat, she didn’t notice the tiny pinprick of bright green light dancing under her skin right where the angel blade had pierced her. She lay there in the ruins of the room, wrapped in the closest thing to sleep that demons ever got, and for the first time she could remember, she was almost totally content.


	2. Chapter 2

Meg felt the chains bite into her skin and grimaced, swaying to shield her glowing abdomen as she braced herself for the next blow. “This is getting old. You know what we want. The angel,” growled the demon goon swinging the chain. “Name him. Now!” She rose, turned slowly toward him, and spat a mouthful of blood in his face.

These goons weren’t anyone she recognized, and she noted with twinge of satisfaction that this meant they were well below her pay grade. Still, it was them who had her chained to the walls, so they might have a little more leverage even if they didn’t have her power. They’d found her not long after she’d left the bunker, jumped her in an alley and dragged her back to Hell. By that time, she already knew what was happening, and hoped desperately that they didn’t, that they were taking her for some other reason. But deep down, she knew why they’d come.

It had taken her a few days to notice the speck of green light that pulsed under her skin. Each day it grew, opening from a barely visible dot to a focused point like a laser. At first, she’d thought maybe it had something to do with the spell, with the wound that had almost taken her life only to suddenly disappear. But some part of her sensed that wasn’t it, and as time passed and it spread into a glowing globe, her body bending to it, she understood.

Now, the chain at her back buckled her body with its force, but she never stopped cradling the orb of light inside her skin. “Do you,” the goon gasped between furious swings, “have – any idea – what – you’ve done?”

As she bent to sustain another swing, Meg noticed a bolt in the floor where one of the chains she was bound by was fastened. Each time her body swayed, the chain rubbed against the bolt, wearing it through bit by bit. She smiled. The chain came down again, and Meg threw her body down harder, judging the angle just right to make the chain link slice hard against the bolt. Her eyes followed the chains up to the ceiling, where a small window was set high in the wall. It would be a tight squeeze, but it would do. The chains crashed into her again. She swung down again, watched the cut grow deeper. With each swing, the chain bit another valley into the bolt until, finally, she saw her chance. Throwing all of her weight against the chain, Meg split the bolt in two and grabbed one of the chains hanging from the ceiling, pulling herself up onto it. Even with the extra weight of her belly, she climbed deftly, so quickly she was halfway up the chain before the demon goons noticed. As they stepped toward her, she swung the chain out and kicked one of them hard in the chest, the other in the forehead. They fell to the floor and Meg found toeholds in the chain links, scrambling up to the ceiling. Reaching out to grab another nearby chain, she braced herself and swung to the window, hoisting herself through. She had to twist sideways to fit the curves of her body through the opening, but she grabbed on to the outside wall and pushed, straining every bit of her strength as her legs flailed behind her, and pulled herself through.

Once her feet touched ground, Meg’s only thought was to run. She escaped into the darkness, her feet carrying her in the only direction that mattered: away.

She’d lost track of how long she’d been running when she stopped in the center of a deep woods, so dark she couldn’t tell if it was Hell or Earth, or maybe somewhere else entirely. The heaviness behind the glow had a new feeling to it, a throb of urgency that made Meg stagger and pause to catch her balance. She could feel it. It was time.

The next throb was a million times more intense, a sensation her body could barely stand. She screamed and fell to her knees. Lying in a nest of dead leaves, she writhed in pain and pressure, screaming into a dark void that seemed to swallow the sounds as soon as they left her mouth. A last violent push shook her to the base of her spine, as the pitch-dark woods flooded with brilliant green light and the sound of a tiny cry.

***

Castiel stood at the edge of the woods, waiting. His hand rested near the handle of his angel blade, just in case. He didn’t know who had summoned him there. The signal had been too faint, too scrambled by some kind of interference. He only knew that it was urgent. He had gotten the same feeling from the call that he got when he was called by Dean or Sam, that pull of family, or at least the closest thing he had to it. But the Winchesters were right beside him when he heard it. And there was something else, a connection that felt even stronger, though until that moment he’d thought that was impossible.

He watched the tree line, wondering if this could be a trap. Then a small figure emerged, stepping slowly toward him. As she moved closer, he lowered his hand. “Meg?” It had to be her. She was holding something bundled in her arms, which as she neared him he recognized as her own torn denim jacket, the same one she’d been wearing the last time she left the bunker. Despite the chill in the air, she wore only a light tank top now, the jacket shredded beyond usefulness. One step closer, and the trees seemed to recede into their own shadows, Meg’s face coming into sharp focus. She was smiling in a way that Cas was sure he’d never seen before.

She reached him and lowered the jacket bundle into his arms. From deep inside it, something squirmed. He lifted the folds to see a tiny boy with a shock of black hair and iridescent green eyes, piercing the air around him with a laser-like light. Then they shifted, became the color of sea glass, before the baby closed them and snuggled down deeper into the jacket and against Castiel’s chest.

He looked up at Meg, his own intense blue eyes wide. “Is this-”

Meg nodded, still smiling. “His name is Daris,” she said. Then the smile dropped from her face. “Take care of him.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I have to. They’re after me, Cas.” She looked over her shoulder at the woods. “None of us will be safe if I’m around.” She touched his shoulder gently, and bent to drop a kiss on the baby’s forehead. “I’ll be ok. Somehow.” She smiled a twisted smile, a spark of her old sarcasm returning to her voice. It softened again as she said, “And so will you. Both of you. I know you’ll keep him safe.” She turned toward the woods. “I-” she started to say, then seemed to think better of it. “I’ll see you,” she said. The woods closed around her, and she vanished from his sight.

***

Not sure where else to go, Castiel found himself standing again in the doorway of the bunker. Sam and Dean were still sitting at the table where he’d left them, and looked up when he moved through the doorway. “What was that all about?” Dean asked.

“And what is _that_?” said Sam, pointing at the ragged denim bundle in Castiel’s arms.

He looked down into Daris’s face, then up again at the brothers. “My son,” he said.

***

Meg didn’t stop moving until she was far enough away that she was sure she couldn’t trace her own steps back to where she’d been, hoping that meant no one else could either. She was still in the woods that seemed to go on forever, the sinister shadows of trees blocking out any light that might try to enter so she couldn’t be sure if it was day or night. As she let her pace slow to a walk, catching her breath, she heard a familiar voice behind her that sent a shudder through her spine.

“Hello, Meg.”

She turned to see Crowley standing behind her, his eyes glowing in the deep of the forest. “ _You_ ,” she said, a realization slowly dawning on her, remembering the dungeon, the chains, the henchmen who’d taken her. “ _You_ sent them.”

Crowley laughed. “No, I didn’t, actually,” he said. “I didn’t need to. They thought they’d get some information out of you that I didn’t already know. _I_ just found it amusing to watch them try.” Meg stared, confused. He took a single, menacing step closer. “They were trying to beat a name out of you, no? But I know it was that trench-coat-wearing puppy. And I know how to find him.”

“You don’t know that,” Meg said.

“Oh, I do. If I didn’t before, I do now. It’s all over your pretty little face. And when I _do_ find him, he’ll lead me straight to that little abomination of yours. I’m certain of that.”

Meg looked over her shoulder at the never-ending expanse of woods, bracing her feet for flight. “There’s no need to run,” Crowley said. “I’m not taking you now. I don’t need to. After what you’ve done, Heaven and Hell will destroy you all before I could even get started on you.” Meg bolted for the trees. “Enjoy your running start,” he called after her. She turned her head back over her shoulder, still running, but he had vanished.

***

“Your _son_?” Dean raised his eyebrows, incredulous. “How is that your son?”

“It is theoretically possible. Generally speaking, angels have their own way of… propagating. But I spent time walking the Earth as a human, when I lost my grace. They say that if you walk among humans, there is a piece of that you never lose. This could be that piece.” His brow wrinkled in confusion as he gazed down at the baby in his arms. “What I don’t understand is how Meg-”

Sam’s eyes widened, his nostrils flaring. Cas knew that expression; it was the one he wore any time he realized they were in deeper trouble than they’d thought. “ _Meg_ ,” he said. “You had that baby with _Meg_?!”

“You know she was human, right? Or did she even tell you that? Did you even bother to find out why we were working that spell in the first place?”

Castiel averted his eyes sheepishly. “There wasn’t a lot of talking,” he admitted.

“Yeah, we can see that,” said Dean.

Cas focused his eyes on them again. “This child is special,” he said. “He holds the keys to both Heaven and Hell. He has the power to rule both kingdoms, or to bring their downfall. That means,” his voice grew ominous, “he will be hunted by them both.”

“To, what, get him on their side?” Dean asked.

“No. To obliterate him.”

Dean shook his head. “You know, you’re supposed to be the one here watching over _us._ We leave you alone for an hour and you make a demon-angel baby that can destroy the world?”

Castiel didn’t say anything.

“What are you going to do?” Sam demanded.

Cas looked down at the baby again, then back at the brothers with a steely defiance fixed in his jaw. “I’m going to protect him.”


	3. Chapter 3

Under the lamplight, Castiel dipped the carpet needle back into the cup of India ink. “Hand me that, would you?” he asked, gesturing toward a nearby bottle of whiskey. Sam slid it over, and Cas poured it onto a rag, swiped it over the baby’s skin near his tiny ribs. Quickly but gently, he pierced the boy’s skin with the needle, finishing the Enochian angel-warding sigil he was tattooing on his side. “Well, that takes care of the angels,” he said. He sighed and dipped the needle into the ink again. “Now for the demons.”

“Is all that really necessary?” Dean asked.

Castiel nodded. “All of Heaven and Hell will be looking for him. They will have ways of finding him no matter how deep underground we go. This, at least, gives him a chance.” He pricked the needle into the baby’s skin again, hearing him whimper and seeing him flinch. He stroked the baby’s forehead. “Shhh, I’ll be done soon. It will be okay, little Daris.” He looked up at the boys. “Daris. It means the Pupil… in Persian, I believe. She always did have a sense of humor.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “The Pupil?”

“It’s kind of like… what you call… urban legends? They told stories about the Pupil in Heaven.” Castiel looked upward, startled with a new realization. “I suppose they must have told some version of the same story in Hell. The Pupil was a being with the blood of angels and demons both, a being too powerful to be allowed to exist. Of course,” he said, “it wasn’t supposed to be possible for him _to_ exist.”

Dean snorted. “Well, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve kind of made a career of going after things that aren’t supposed to exist.”

A shadow crossed Cas’s face, and he nodded. “They call him the Pupil because when he realizes that he has the keys, there is no knowledge that will be out of his reach. Not in Heaven, or Hell… not even here.”

“But I mean, is that so bad?” Sam asked. “What’s wrong with having knowledge?”

Castiel stared at him. “Knowledge brought the fall of Eden,” he said. “Knowing the wrong things – the things we weren’t meant to know – is a power nothing should have.”

“These stories,” Dean said. “What happens in them?”

“They’re different. In one of them, the Pupil decides to unite Heaven and Hell. This brings endless destruction and civil war. The forces cannot be joined under a common leader, so everything falls to chaos. While the factions destroy each other, humanity withers.”

“Nice bed-time story,” Dean snorted.

Castiel looked confused. “Angels don’t sleep,” he said.

“Yeah, I’m aware.”

“There’s another story where the Pupil decides to reject both kingdoms and walk among mortals. He feels every bit of suffering, knows every bit of deceit. Even pleasure is too much for him to bear, because he can’t control it. He can’t stop feeling it. And even something that feels good begins to feel like torture when it never stops.” He took another swipe with the rag, another poke of the needle. “Almost done,” he told the told the baby, rocking him gently. “Eventually, the Pupil goes mad and releases all of the sensations into the world. They infect humanity with his curse, and madness reigns for perpetuity.”

Dean looked straight into Castiel’s eyes. “Cas, I gotta say,” he said, “it doesn’t sound like there’s a happy ending for this kid.”

Castiel stared hard back. “I will find a way,” he said, his voice even lower and rougher than usual. He finished the symbol he was etching on the baby’s side and wiped away a few small droplets of blood. He lifted the baby to his shoulder, but his crying didn’t stop. Castiel jostled him gently, and the squalls seemed to get louder. He rose, moving toward the door. “I’d better… tend to him, I suppose.”

“Does that thing even eat?” Dean asked. “Sleep? Do you have to, you know, change it?”

Castiel’s face went blank. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I do know it would probably be best to get him somewhere peaceful. He’s had a long day.” He turned to walk through the door into the next room, then paused, breathed deeply, and turned back. “Dean,” he said. “What you said earlier. About going after things that aren’t supposed to exist.”

“Yeah?”

“You will not go after my son. Ever. If you do, I will stop you.” He fixed his eyes on them. “By whatever means necessary.”

“Cas, you don’t mean what I think you’re saying. We’re family!”

“He is my family. You will not harm him.” Castiel turned and left the room.

***

Dean picked up the glass of whiskey that Castiel had dipped the rag in, noticed specks of black ink floating on the surface. He shrugged, set the glass back down, and swigged straight from the bottle instead. “You know, he really is one of us,” he said, still staring at the door. “We’ve been told time after time that our weak spot is family. And we still do the same crap over and over.” He set the bottle down with a hard thump. “Can we really be so shocked if Cas does the same thing?”

“Dean, we’ve been down this road. You remember what Bobby always said. ‘Family don’t end in blood.’ Well, blood doesn’t always make family, either. Sometimes it makes evil, and it still has to be stopped!” He stood up. “We don’t even know what this kid is capable of! All we know is, it’s nothing good.”

“No,” Dean said slowly. “We don’t know that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look, we’ve both been on the other side of evil before. When I was a demon? When you came back without your soul? We were both capable of destruction. And we helped each other anyway. We saved each other. Because that’s what you do when you’re family.” He shook his head. “And Cas is family. And that means his family is our family, however it goes down.” He stood and turned toward the door. “I’m gonna go talk to him.”

***

In the next room, Castiel sat in a high-backed chair, the baby swaddled in his lap, cooing softly. He looked up when Dean entered the room, but did not speak or move.

Dean sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “Look, Cas,” he said. “I been thinking. Maybe you could set up camp here for a while. We could make, like, a nursery.” He looked around at the seriously appointed room.

“Why would I want to do that?” Castiel asked. “I don’t need sleep, and I’m not certain he does either.”

“You still need rest,” Dean said. “Everybody’s gotta rest sometimes, no matter what they’re running from or how hard. And everybody needs a home. And a family.” He gestured around the room. “What I’m sayin’ is, you got one here.”

“I appreciate that.” Castiel returned his attention to stroking the baby’s forehead, smoothing a dark cowlick.

“He’s got your hair,” Dean said, with a dark laugh. “Look, I’m not saying I have a good feeling about this. In fact, I can’t remember the last thing I had a worse feeling about. But what I am saying is we’re with you on this.  If this is what you want, we got your back.”

“It is.”

“But on one condition. You gotta be honest with me, man. No secrets, no sneaking around. Whatever we’re dealing with, we’ll deal with it, but we gotta go in knowing as much as you know. Okay?”

Castiel nodded.

“Let’s figure out where we’re gonna put you.”

***

In the months that followed, Castiel never did sleep, but he did gradually learn to put himself into a sort of suspended state, consciousness drifting, body totally at peace. In his mind, he sometimes saw images of the people he loved, the places he’d been. He imagined this was what dreaming felt like. Even when he’d lived as a human, he hadn’t dreamed; he would fall into oblivion at the end of each night and find himself hours later, the time between a blank void he could never see inside of. He found that he rather liked almost-dreaming. He would lie in the bed in his nursery-room and feel the day and its fears melt off of him. It made the next day of fighting easier somehow.

One night as he almost-dreamed, he caught the shape of a moving shadow in his peripheral vision, a figure standing next to the crib in the corner. In a flash, he was out of the bed and lunging across the room. He grabbed the figure by the throat and forced it up against the wall. “Who are you?” he shouted. “Why are you here?”

A familiar voice choked from beneath his hands. “Cas! Cas, it’s me!”

He released his grip as Meg bent forward, coughing for air. “Geeze,” she sputtered. “Next time buy me dinner first!”

He gathered her into his arms, holding her up while she caught her breath. When she spoke again, her voice had turned low and pleading. “I had to see him,” she said. “He looks just like you, doesn’t he?”

“I’ve been told there is a resemblance, yes,” Cas said, turning with her toward the crib.

“He’s beautiful.” She lifted the hem of his tiny T-shirt, traced her fingers over the tattooed symbols on his ribs. “Clever,” she said. “It’s funny, you know? These should hide him, even from us. But they don’t. Ever wonder why that is?”

Castiel shook his head.

“I don’t know, either,” Meg said. “I mean, there’s powerful magic out there. I get that. But I guess some things are stronger.” She took his hands in hers and led him to the bed, sitting on the edge, pulling him with her. “Lie down,” she said.

He complied. She spread her body over his, chest to chest, covering him like a blanket. Stretching her arms to the full length of his, she pressed their palms together. Warm and slightly slick, bending and reaching to fit inside the shape of each other. She lay there for a long time, just breathing. “Listen to me,” she said finally. “I will always find my way back, okay? Remember that.”

Castiel lay perfectly still and silent beneath her for a moment. “Have you ever dreamed?” he asked suddenly.

Meg laughed. “What?”

“I think I’ve almost cracked the code… I could show you, if you’d like. I mean, if you have time to stay.”

Meg smiled as she lay there, feeling the way the rhythms of their breathing almost, but not quite, lined up. “I think I’d like that.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Cas, you look ridiculous,” Dean said as they climbed out of the Impala.

Castiel scowled as he unfolded himself from the backseat. “The lady at the store said this was the latest in parenting technology.”

“Yeah, well you look like a damn kangaroo.”

“It serves its purpose.” Castiel looked down at the padded sling strapped to his chest, the baby’s legs dangling.

            “You know, you really could’ve stayed back at the bunker,” Sam said. “It’s warded against everything. You’d be safer there than out here on the road.” They’d gone to shake up a vamp’s nest outside Shreveport, a called-in favor from an old friend of their father’s. Castiel, to the brothers’ surprise, had insisted on tagging along.

            “I just don’t think it’s good to be in one place for too long,” Cas said. “Warded or not.” It wasn’t entirely untrue, but there was another reason he’d wanted to leave the bunker. It made him feel restless, wondering about Meg on the nights she didn’t find her way to him, which seemed more and more lately.

            That first night, he’d held her to his chest and had her close her eyes. “Tell me what you see.”  
            “You’ll laugh,” she said.

            “I won’t. I promise.”

            “It’s a salvage yard,” she said. “My family – if you can call them that – we were kind of scavengers, took what we needed from what other people threw away. Had a shack behind a yard we holed up in. I used to go down there and climb into the old cars. I’d push on the gas pedals and just imagine that they could take me… anywhere.” She ran her finger up Cas’s arm and down to his palm again. “It was the only time I really felt free.” She laughed and rolled over, shifting half her weight off him. “That’s so stupid.”

            “It’s not stupid.”

            Meg laughed again, pulling her fingers through her hair. It was dark again, the bad bleach job ditched sometime since Cas had seen her last. “That’s not the stupid part,” she said. “Look, I know we’re not picking out china patterns or anything, Clarence. I get that. But,” she paused. “I want you to know something. The way I felt back then?” She ducked her head, grimacing at her own words. “That’s kinda how I feel when I’m with you.”

            Castiel bent to kiss her, and she kissed back for a brief moment before whispering, “Wait.” She rose from the bed and crossed the hall to Dean’s room, cracking the door slowly to make sure he wasn’t there before slipping inside. She came back with something small, wrapped in foil.

            “What’s that?”

            “Trust me,” Meg said, lowering herself next to him again. “Call it insurance against us getting into even more trouble.” She started back in kissing him.

            In the morning, she was gone.

            Now Castiel stood outside the motel with the Winchesters, hoping the change of scenery would do them all some good. Staying hidden in a bunker was no kind of life for Daris; maybe here, miles from anywhere anyone would expect him to be, Cas could give him a taste of the outside world.

            Dean sighed. “Here we go,” he said. “Three men and an abomination.” He and Sam strode toward the motel office.

            “I’m – I’m not really a man,” Castiel called after them as he stumbled to keep up.

***

            Once inside the room, the brothers had stashed their personal things and loaded back into the car, leaving Castiel and Daris alone. Cas sat the baby on the floor and looked around the room for something to give him to play with. The room certainly wasn’t designed to be hospitable to babies; he could see that right away. Exposed wires dangled from a loose socket in one wall, and in another there was a hole the size of a basketball punched through the plaster. Castiel opened the drawers of the leaning dresser and found a small vinyl-bound Bible in the bottom one.

            “You know, this isn’t really accurate,” he said, lying down on his stomach in front of Daris and spreading open the book. “That’s what you get for asking humans to write it. Everyone felt the need to put their own opinions in.” He thumbed through the waxy pages and began reading. Daris cooed softly to the cadence of the story and reached a chubby arm out in Castiel’s direction. Closing the book, he let the baby grasp his finger. Daris giggled, and his eyes flared bright fluorescent green, the beams shooting around the room and ricocheting off every surface. Castiel jumped up and ran to the window, cinching the heavy curtains tightly closed. “Shhh,” he whispered, running back to Daris and scooping him up, bouncing him on his shoulder. “I know you’re excited. That’s good. But I’m going to have to teach you how to be careful.” In the darkness of the blackout curtains, the room suddenly seemed stifling, and Castiel felt restless.  Somehow, despite what he’d just seen, it felt less safe to stay in the room than to leave it. Bundling Daris into the pouch, he patted the boy’s head and said, “Come, son. Let me show you this world.”

***

            After the first night she returned to the bunker, Meg came another handful of times. Each time she came when Castiel was in his almost-dreaming state, and he always came back to reality to find her in the bed with him. Some nights they’d be tangled together in a sweet friction, but just as many, she’d simply be lying there, pressing her chest to his. One night she brought Daris in and lay him between them, his tiny body at first a squirming riot, then a comforting weight. “This feels like-” Castiel began to say, but Meg had said, “Shhh,” her voice breaking. “Don’t say it. Please.”

            Each time the visits were further apart, and now it had been weeks since she’d come at all. Castiel tried to tell himself that she would call him if she were in distress, but when he searched the channels of earthbound suffering every night, hoping both that he would and wouldn’t hear her voice, he could never find her.

            As it happened, at that moment, she wasn’t far from him. She’d taken a counter-waitress job in a truck stop near the gulf coast, trying to lay low and at the same time keep an ear to the ground in hopes of finding out just how much Hell knew about the Pupil. Literally, she’d _taken_ it: pulled the HELP WANTED sign down from the window and threatened the manager with particularly inventive forms of torture until he’d agreed to hire her. He kept her on in part out of fear, but also in part because she wasn’t half bad at it. In her drab uniform and matching visor, identical to those of the other “girls” – half of whom must have been at least pushing fifty – she knew she looked unspectacular enough to hide in plain sight.

            At the time that Castiel stepped out of the motel room, Meg was leaning on the lunch counter, bored. She hadn’t had a customer in over an hour, and there were only so many times you could wipe the same clean spot with a dirty rag. Under the pretense of straightening the racks, she wandered over into the gift shop area, traveling the aisles of dried-out alligator skulls and Confederate flag hip flasks. Almost without thinking about it, she lifted a small stuffed bear with incredibly soft powder-blue fur from a rack. The bear was wearing a tiny halo and wings made out of some kind of shiny material. Meg smirked to herself. Appropriate.

            “Where is he?” asked a voice from behind her. Meg gasped and spun, nearly dropping the bear.

            She found herself looking into the face of Charlene, one of the other waitresses, young and mousy. She could sense no possession or disguise; just a simple country girl with a bewildered face. “Who?” she stammered, trying to save face.

            Charlene pointed at the bear. “Your little boy,” she said. “That is who you were thinking about, isn’t it? I know that look. He’s not with you, is he?”

            Still struggling to recover her breath, Meg said, “No.”

            “I thought so.” Charlene’s voice was soft, sympathetic. “You know, I don’t tell everybody this, but I got a daughter up in Tuscaloosa, living with my auntie. I want her back, I really do, but it’s just so hard, you know?”

            “Yeah,” said Meg. Charlene turned away, her face looking discouraged. Meg sighed in a mixture of sympathy and disgust. “He’s with his father,” she said. “I had to come down here alone to deal with… family issues.”

            Charlene nodded. “What kind of work does your husband do?” she asked.

            “He’s not-” Meg started. “He works with his two best friends,” she said finally, setting the bear back on the rack. “In the… extermination business.”

***

            There wasn’t much in the blocks around the motel but some old warehouses and refineries, but they’d been whitewashed at some point, and they gleamed brilliantly against the cloudless blue sky. Castiel marveled at how humans, even in getting everything wrong, could make such beauty by mistake.

            He bent toward Daris’s head snuggled against his chest, wanting to tell him so. Just then a column of blinding white light appeared in his path, four others forming behind it. Castiel froze as the columns shifted into human vessels.

            “Castiel.”

            “Kushiel!”

            The first figure stepped forward, shaking his head. “So it is true, then,” he said. “Castiel, angel of tears and sorrows. What is truly sorrowful here is just how far you’ve fallen.”

            Castiel reached for his angel blade. Kushiel laughed as he thrust it forward. “Put that little thing away,” Kushiel said. “You know you’re outnumbered here. And we’ve come prepared. You’re bringing a knife to a firefight.” Kushiel waved his hand, and a whip of flame appeared in his palm. “Accept what’s coming to you, or this will be far worse.”

            From the pouch strapped to Castiel’s chest, Daris started to cry. As his wails rose, his eyes flashed electric green. Castiel tried to jostle the sling to calm him, but he was inconsolable. He flailed his fists in the air. A bolt of green light crackled from his fist, flung in the direction of Kushiel and his soldiers. Kushiel’s body lit up and jolted a few feet from the ground, then crumbled to the pavement, charred to ash. Daris continued to wail and fling his fists, and green bolts took down the soldiers, one by one.

            Standing there, amid the piles of rubble that had been made of the angels’ vessels, Castiel looked at the destruction, then down at the small boy strapped to his chest. Daris had calmed, cooing and laughing.

***

            Castiel burst into the room and began throwing things into his duffle bag. The boys had returned, and Sam was sitting at the small table working on his computer while Dean sprawled across one of the beds. “Cas?” Dean said.

            “I have to leave. They’re here.”

            “Who’s here?”

            “Angels. They’ve been tracking me.” He paused. “They’re… gone now. But there will be more.”

            Dean sighed. “We knew this would happen sooner or later.”

            “I was hoping for much later.”

            “We all were. Look, whatever you need to do. But we’ll handle this.” Castiel nodded and swung the duffle over his shoulder. “I mean, there’s nothing else you’re not telling us, is there?”

            Castiel looked down at the baby in the pouch, snoozing contentedly on his chest. “No. There’s nothing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kushiel is a real angel, charged with divine punishment. I am using the theory here that Castiel is actually Cassiel, the angel of tears and sorrows, as many angels have multiple versions of their names.


	5. Chapter 5

           In the end, they wouldn’t let him go alone. It wasn’t the Winchesters’ way to leave a job unfinished, but they were able to call in backup to help finish what they’d started, swearing to come back and tie it up when their friend was safe. Despite Castiel’s insistence that he could transport himself and Daris much more efficiently, they wouldn’t let him go without being able to see for themselves that he made it safely to the bunker.

            They had taken a seemingly counterintuitive route, one that went out of the way and dipped further south in order to connect to a shortcut Dean had sworn would be worth it. It was at the southern tip of this detour that they first stopped for gas, in the near-deserted lot of a truck stop with an attached diner. When they finished pumping the gas, Dean announced, “I’m going in for some pie. Anybody want anything?”

            Sam rubbed his eyes. “Coffee, maybe? I’ll come with you.”

            Castiel decided he didn’t feel safe waiting alone in the car, so he climbed out and followed them.

            Dean ordered two black coffees and a slice of cherry pie from the counter waitress, who called the order back to another waitress behind her. Standing at the edge of the nearby gift shop, Castiel picked a blue bear with wings and a halo from a rack. He stared at it for a moment, then shrugged and handed it to Daris.

            The second waitress stepped from the back with the plate of pie in one hand, a glass coffeepot in the other. When she met Dean’s eyes at the counter, she dropped both, shattering them on the tile floor. A wave of coffee splattered everything up to knee height; shards of glass and specks of whipped cream and cherry filling flew through the air. She stayed frozen for only a split second, then bolted.

            It was Sam who caught up to her, in the hallway leading toward the bathrooms. He pinned her to the wall, a blade pressed to her throat.

            “Sam! Goddammit! Let me go!” She kicked at him from under his grip.

            “Not until you tell us what you’re up to. Why did you run from us?”

            “Because you and your brother just blew my cover. _Again_.”

            “Who were you hiding from?”

            “I don’t know, Heaven? Hell? Pretty much everyone?” She swung out another kick that connected with his knee. Sam staggered backward but didn’t drop the knife. “Show me a Most Wanted list I’m not on these days.”

            “So you were just gonna run away and leave Cas holding the bag.”

            “It’s not like that! I was trying to _protect_ him!”

            “Yeah, right.”

            “I _was._ And it’s not a _bag_ I left him holding, you dick, it’s our _kid._ You think that doesn’t kill me?”

            “Last I checked, demons weren’t big on maternal instinct.”

            “Yeah, well, check again.” She gave the hardest kick yet, and he finally released her. “Doesn’t matter, anyway,” she mumbled. “Like I said, you blew my cover. Now I gotta go deeper underground.”

            “Oh, don’t be so hard on the boy, sweetie,” said a high, sweet voice from behind them. Sam swiveled his head toward the first waitress they’d given their order to.

            “Charlene?” said Meg.

            “He and his brother didn’t blow your cover,” Charlene said. She blinked, and her eyes flipped coal black. “You did.”

            Meg gasped, pressing her body back against the wall. Sam tightened his grip on his knife. But it was an ordinary blade. It wouldn’t hurt her.

            “My boy’s with his daddy, the exterminator,” Charlene said in a sing-song voice. Dropping back to a tight growl, she said, “You really couldn’t have come up with something better than that? You might as well have gift-wrapped them for me.”

            “But you – your eyes – I saw- ”

            “Did you really think they’d be stupid enough to send me up here without shielding me from you?” Charlene stepped closer, reached a hand out and flipped a lock of Meg’s hair. “Little Meg. Gone so soft on us. Up here slumming it with trash like this.” She shot a glance in Sam’s direction.

            “Dean!” Sam yelled.

            From back in the diner, where he’d stayed to keep an eye on Castiel and the baby when Sam had bolted down the hall, Dean heard his brother call his name. “Cas, give me your blade,” he said, sensing this was going to take more than his gun. Cas reluctantly handed it over. “Do not come after me, you hear?” Castiel nodded.

            Dean sprinted down the corridor in the direction of Sam’s voice.

            “From where I sit, I see you have two choices,” Charlene was telling Meg. “Either we go kill the Pupil and your little feathered friend, or I kill you right now.” She pulled a demon-killing blade from her apron. “And I’ve been watching them in the kitchen. Getting good with my knife skills. I’ll do it slice by slice.” She slashed Meg’s arm, making her groan and grit her teeth as her blood sizzled from the cut. She raised the blade again, and Meg shrank against the wall, covering her neck with her arms. A thin silver point pierced through Charlene’s throat, and she crackled with orange fire and fell to the ground. Standing behind her, Dean pulled back Cas’s blade, still dripping with her blood. “Run. Get in the car,” he told Meg.

            She did as she was told, snagging Castiel and the baby in the lobby on the way out. A few moments later, Sam and Dean came out and climbed into the front seats. “Seems like she was the only one,” Dean said.

            “Yeah,” said Meg from the back, “But-”

            “But not for long, right?” he sighed. “Where have I heard that song before?” He cranked the engine and they tore out of the lot.

***

            They rode in silence for a long time. Finally it was Meg who spoke. “What crawled up your ass back there, Winchester? I thought we were cool,” she said to Sam.

            “We were cool, until you did that to Cas.”

            Meg snorted. “Wait, what _I_ did to _him_? I get it. The innocent little flower. It took two of us, you know, that’s usually how it works. I’d be happy to give you a list of all the things _he_ did to _me._ ”

            “I’m sitting right here,” Cas said.

            They both ignored him. “That’s not what I meant,” Sam said. “You didn’t tell him about this.” He waved his hand across the backseat, across Castiel’s lap and the baby snuggled there.

            “About what, exactly?” Meg’s voice took on a sharp point.

            “The Pupil? That name? You _knew._ You _knew_ about this kid and you didn’t tell him.”

            “The Pupil was a _story_! I never thought it was real! Don’t you remember when you thought the things in stories weren’t real?”

            “No,” Dean chimed from the driver’s seat.

            “Yeah, actually,” Sam sighed, raking a hand backwards through his hair. His face softened. Dean hadn’t had a choice, but he and their father had made sure Sam thought monsters, ghosts, and demons were just stories for as long as possible.

            “Wait,” Meg said. “You thought I had him on purpose, didn’t you? To do some kind of evil thing?”

            “Well, you _are_ a-”

            “I can’t believe you! Listen to me and listen good. Everything I did with your little angel – _everything_ ,” she said emphatically, with a suggestive grin edged in ice, “I did because I _wanted_ to. No other reason.”

            “Still right here.”

            Dean reached over and switched on the radio, and the silence settled again under the loud guitar riffs as they rolled off into the night.


	6. Chapter 6

            They had planned to drive in shifts and not stop until they reached the bunker, but after several hours it became clear that neither brother had the energy to keep going, and they wouldn’t trust Cas to drive, _certainly_ not Meg. They pulled into the lot of another rundown motel, mumbling promises to be back on the road in a few hours.

            Inside, facing the two double beds, there was only a brief moment of awkwardness over sleeping arrangements before Sam looked at Cas and Meg and said, “Well, you two don’t sleep, right? Problem solved.”

            Meg smiled at him. “Yeah, no problem. I’m sure me and Clarence can entertain ourselves for a few hours.”

            Dean pointed at her. “No! No, you will…sit and…behave yourselves!”

            Meg laughed and grabbed Castiel’s arm, pulling him out of the room with her, running. His mind was still troubled, but he had to admit he liked seeing her like this again. Maybe it was being back with her old adversaries, but something about this ride had brought back a spark he hadn’t seen in a while.

            Castiel and Meg sat on the iron-and-concrete steps leading to the upper level of the motel, while little Daris sat at their feet, playing with the angel bear. The crumbling stairs were gritty under their legs; the streetlight in the parking lot bathed them in a sickly bluish glow. After a few moments of silence, Meg smiled and shifted into Castiel’s lap, planting her thighs on either side of his and turning to face him. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” she said playfully. “What do you say, Hot Wings? How about seven minutes of Heaven?”

            Castiel averted his eyes. “Meg, I-”

            “What is it? Are you worried about him?” she nodded toward the baby. With a wave of her hand, a kind of glowing bubble formed around him. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We can see in, but he can’t see out. It’s soundproof, too.” She planted a kiss on his neck. He still didn’t speak or move. “Are you afraid someone will see?” Her voice was light, taunting. She grinded her hips against his, leaning in to whisper in his ear. “Let them watch.” She hiked up the hem of her polyester waitress dress, still stained with coffee and Charlene’s blood, and slipped her panties off. Breathing heat into Cas’s ear, she reached for the buckle on his belt. He found that his body responded to hers even when his mind couldn’t disengage from his worries. “Mmmph!” Meg bit her lip and buried her face in Castiel’s shoulder to muffle her cries as she moved against him.

            They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the empty expanse of asphalt just beyond the reach of the lamp. Startling and pulling apart, hoping they’d only been caught by a maintenance worker or a late-night traveler, they heard a voice bellow “Oh, COME ON!” in a tone that chilled them both. “I’m well-acquainted with my share of perversions, but that is just _wrong_ ,” the voice went on as Crowley stepped out of the shadows.

            “Cas…” Meg tugged at the hem of his coat. They stood up, backs to the door, as Meg scooped the baby into her arms.

            “Oh, stop with all the theatrics. I may be literally the only one who _doesn’t_ want to kill the three of you.” Crowley paused, considering. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind seeing either of you two turned inside out on a spit. But I think your little bouncing crime against nature is actually far more interesting alive.”

            “Leave him alone,” Meg breathed.

            “Interesting proposal,” said Crowley. “Here’s my counteroffer. Give him to me.”

            “Why would we do that?” Castiel’s voice was a growl, his stare cold and focused.

            “Simple. I’ll keep him safe. There are legions on both sides who would love to turn him into a fine paste. With me, he will be protected.”

            “Until he’s old enough to use for your own gain.”

            “Ahh.” Crowley smiled and waved a finger. “Now we’re on the same page.”

            On Meg’s shoulder, Daris cried. Castiel froze as his son’s eyes flashed brilliant green. “Get back!” he shouted.

            “Is this really necess-”

            “No, I mean it. Get back!” The baby squirmed as he cried, and a support pillar gave way, crashing the motel’s upper catwalk to the ground. Cas and Meg jumped aside just as the rubble came tumbling down. When they looked up, Crowley was gone.

            “Coward,” Meg muttered. She turned to Castiel. “Cas, what just happened?”

            He sighed. “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” he said. “Daris has… powers. Like nothing I’ve ever seen before. In Shreveport, I saw him smite five angels.”

            “What?”  
            “Five of them, one very powerful,” Castiel repeated. “I don’t even think he meant to. He just started crying, and there was a light, and they were reduced to ash.” He looked down and cleared his throat. “Meg, nothing in any known realm can smite an angel by raising a hand.”

            She jerked her head toward the closed motel-room door. “Do they know?”

            “They don’t. They can’t,” he said urgently.

            “Keeping secrets from the boys? This is new.”

            “My charge is to protect him,” he said, looking at Daris, “from everything and everyone. Powers so great… they create fear. And fear brings danger.”

            “What about you? Are you afraid?”

            “I’m terrified,” he admitted. He looked at the door. “We need to leave here,” he said. “Now. We can’t wait for them to wake.”

            “Cas…”

            “Do you trust me?” he asked. Meg nodded. “Hold on to me tightly. I think I have just enough grace.”

***

            They were in a raw, open space on the top floor of an abandoned warehouse. Exposed pipes and wires stood stark against the rough brick walls and sooty windows, but the center of the room had been arranged into a sort of makeshift living space, with a mattress, a tangle of blankets, and a small scarred table with a few mismatched and chipped dishes.

            “What is this place?” Meg asked.

            “Detroit.”

            “Why are we in Detroit?”

            “I came here first in the end times. It was familiar, so I returned in the time when I had lost my grace. I warded this place more thoroughly than any place on Earth. Nothing can get in here.”

            Meg sighed. “Well, it’s not the Hilton, but I can work with it.”

***

            A thousand miles away, Sam Winchester stepped out of a motel room to see that the building had all but collapsed around it. “Dean!” he shouted.

            “Mmmmmph,” his brother replied from the bed inside the door.

            “Dean, you’d better come see this.”

            Rubbing his eyes, Dean dragged himself to the edge of the bed. “Something happened out here,” Sam said.

            “Like what?”

            “I don’t know. It looks like an earthquake hit. Or a tornado. Everything’s destroyed.” He turned from the parking lot, deserted except for Dean’s car parked untouched outside their door. The few other cars that had been there the night before were either gone or overturned, smashed like broken toys on the asphalt. “They’re gone.”

            “Who’s gone? What?”

            “Cas and Meg. And the kid. They’re gone.”


	7. Chapter 7

            Meg had taken to calling their little space “the Penthouse.” There were days when it almost didn’t sound like a mean joke. She hung blackout curtains from the tall windows and stuck fading flowers in the cups on the tabletops, all of them wilting from her demon’s touch in spite of herself. They really had no use for tables or dishes or even the mattress; angels and demons didn’t eat or sleep, and they might just as well have been in an empty room for all the good those things did them. But there was something comforting about having a home, even if it wasn’t built for them. They would lie in the bed sometimes, trying out Castiel’s almost-dreaming trick or just talking, waiting until the sun rose, imagining it meant something to them when it did.

            Sitting on the mattress as Meg fussed with the curtains, the gold glow of dying streetlamps and the billows of steam from manhole covers shifting through the cracks, Castiel rocked the baby and sang a song he remembered hearing on one of Dean Winchester’s classic rock radio stations. “I got a room at the top of the world tonight, and I ain’t coming down,” he sang.

            Meg turned from the window, smiling. “Listen to the little feather duster,” she said. “Singing a song that wasn’t written in Enochian a few billion years ago? The Winchesters must be rubbing off on you.”

“I listen to the radio,” Castiel said, in a wounded, almost sulky voice that made Meg press back a laugh. She walked over to the mattress and lowered herself beside him.

She’d had nothing to wear since they’d arrived but her bloodstained waitress dress; quickly tiring of that, she’d commandeered Castiel’s white dress shirt, which hung to her knees and made her look almost innocent in the right light, a perversion she loved and hated at the same time. Cas, for his part, wore only a plain white T-shirt with his slacks but often persisted in wearing his trench coat over it, which – Meg was loath to admit – she found endearing. Set free from his father’s arms, Daris lurched forward, staggering toward his first steps. Meg watched him, a mixture of pain and pride drawn on her face. “We’re going to have to teach him to fight soon,” she said. She pictured the boy running beside them, an angel blade in his chubby fist. He wouldn’t have time to grow up. He needed to be a warrior now.

Almost as if he was reading her thoughts – and maybe he was, Meg thought; it seemed like just the kind of sneaky thing an angel would be able to do – Castiel wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to him, halfway in his lap on the mattress. Meg made a noise of protest, but didn’t move to get away. There, snuggled into each other, Meg rolling her eyes as Cas sniffed her hair and planted a delicate kiss on the side of her neck, but still not moving away, they watched as their son chased the dust motes drifting in the windows from behind the heavy curtains and dancing in the small slice of light that got in. They watched him be a child, for maybe the only moment of that he’d get.

***

            Meanwhile, Sam and Dean weren’t thinking about vampires at all anymore. They were focusing all of their considerable hunting skills on tracking down an angel, a demon, and a baby. Leaning against the car outside of an Oklahoma truck stop, Sam spread out a map he still wasn’t sure why they were using, since it didn’t hold any clues as to where they should be headed. “If you were Cas, where would you go?” he mused aloud, only half-addressing Dean.

            “How would I know?” Dean replied. “I’m not in the guy’s head. Anyway, we don’t even know he’s the one calling the shots.” He gave Sam a pointed look.

            Sam caught it. “And _I_ would know what _Meg_ is thinking?!”

            “Forgive me for thinking you’re a little more intimate with demon motives than I am.”

            “You’re gonna bring _Ruby_ into this now?”

            “Am I out of line? Tell me if I’m out of line, Sam.” He said it like a dare.

            Sam sighed and pushed his hair out of his face. It had been a long, rough ride. They were tired, and starting to snipe at each other, maybe just for something to do besides drive and worry. Seeing his brother’s expression, Dean’s own face softened. “Besides, you and Meg do have… history.”

            “She possessed me, Dean, not the other way around. I didn’t get to hear her thoughts.” He folded up the map and opened the passenger door. “Anyway, I think that was a different Meg than the one we’re dealing with now.”

            Dean opened his own door and slid into the car, but not without quirking an eyebrow skeptically in Sam’s direction. Sam didn’t say anything else, but he was remembering a conversation they’d had, the night he’d thought she died. Something she’d said that he couldn’t get out of his head lately.

            He’d thought about telling Cas, back when they’d finally broken the news to him. It had been awhile since that night; Cas had been in the wind for some time, and there wasn’t really a chance to tell him. Even when he first drifted back into their lives, it hadn’t seemed quite appropriate to just blurt it out. But Sam had noticed something in the way Cas’s eyes flickered whenever he or Dean mentioned anything about a demonic presence; the way he once caught him absently fingering a strip of leftover bandage. “I’m going to tell him,” he’d said to Dean.

            “You sure that’s a good idea?” Dean had said. “It’s just gonna upset him. He’s going through enough as it is. Besides,” he went on, “we lose people along the way. We expect it. I’m sure he’s figured it out.”

            “I don’t think he has, Dean. He keeps getting these looks like…I don’t know, like he’s _waiting_ for her. She’s not just someone we lost along the way. Not to him. You know it, we both know it. We might not like it, but we know it.”

            Dean had sighed in resignation as Sam moved into the room where Cas sat, the bandage in his hands, staring out the window. “Cas,” Sam said gently. Castiel glanced up, eyes wide and plaintive beneath his furrowed brow. “We need to talk.” He sat on the arm of Castiel’s chair, close enough to comfort him but far enough away to give him space if he needed it. He wasn’t sure how the angel would react; he’d seen him lose people, sure. Friends, even family. But he’d never seen him look at any of them the way he’d looked at Meg.

            “The night you found the angel tablet,” Sam began. “While you escaped, and Meg stayed to fight off Crowley?” Castiel nodded. “She, um…there was a fight, between them. With angel blades. Meg…I’m sorry, Cas. She didn’t make it out.”

            “No.” Castiel shook his head, a dark look crossing his face. “No, I told you to stay with her. To protect her –”

            Sam swallowed. “She told me to go,” he said.  He remembered her face, bruised but smiling, and the words she’d said to him. _Save your brother and my unicorn._ He tried to think how to explain what she’d meant, how she’d used the word _unicorn_ to mean someone you loved enough that it changed everything. “She wanted me to save you,” was all he said, finally.

            While Sam spoke, Cas had wrapped the bandage tightly around his fist, seemingly without thinking about it. It was now forcing the blood into his fingers, making them swell and turn purple. He turned toward the window, but as his face moved Sam could swear he saw a tear slide down Castiel’s cheek. He’d never seen him cry before. He wasn’t even sure he was capable of it. He reached out a hand toward Castiel’s shoulder, but the angel shook his head before he could make contact. “Just go,” he’d said. “Please.”

            After that, Sam had known not to mention Meg around Cas. It would throw him into unpredictable moods, his normally stoic exterior cracking as he smashed a plate against the kitchen wall or locked himself in one of the studies and refused to come out for days. It was better for everyone if they just avoided the subject.

            Now, in the passenger seat of the Impala, Sam suddenly bolted upright from where he’d been leaning against the headrest. “I know where Cas is,” he said.

            Next to him behind the wheel, Dean looked over and raised a brow. “You sure?”

            “Positive.”

***

            Outside the warehouse, the car’s idle was a steady rumble in the otherwise quiet alley. “You’re sure this is the place?” Dean asked. Sam nodded, remembering the first time they’d tracked him down. The name they’d found him living under. _Clarence._ That was when Sam had known, despite the fact they never spoke of it. He hadn’t forgotten her.

            “Yeah. He told me about it once. Said he warded the place against everything – it’s even safer than the bunker. ‘Course, he was human, so he got lost and couldn’t find his way back to it. That’s when April found him.” As if on cue, Sam and his brother both grimaced at the memory of the reaper who’d tried to kill their friend. “If he wants to protect Meg, he’ll bring her here.”

            They climbed the dark, musty stairs to the top floor, guns drawn just in case. When they reached the landing, Sam pointed to a pair of sigils next to the door – one for angels, one for demons. Both with a line scratched through, breaking the circle. Dean nodded. “They’re here.”

            Sam raised a fist to knock, but Dean grabbed him by the sleeve of his coat, stopping him. “We don’t know what might be in there with them,” he said. He jerked his head toward the sigils. “If they got in, what’s keeping every other angel and demon out?” He raised his gun and Sam, sighing, did the same as they kicked the door open.

            As the door swung widely into the room, Castiel and Meg jumped up from the mattress on the floor and flattened themselves against the wall. Cas grabbed for his angel blade, but when they saw who it was, Meg’s eyes flared. She ran across the room and punched Dean hard in the shoulder. “What were you gonna do, _shoot_ us?” she yelled.

            Rubbing his shoulder, Dean muttered, “I kind of want to shoot you _now._ ”

            Sam narrowed his eyes at her. “How are you safe here?” he asked. “I saw the sigils. You notched them out. What’s protecting you?”

            Castiel rolled his eyes. “I know what I’m doing, Sam. I broke the circles precisely where I needed to in order to let me and Meg in. Nothing else.”

            “Well, what about the kid? I mean, he’s a demon _and_ an angel, right? How did he get through?”

            Castiel cast his eyes downward. “I haven’t found anything that can ward against him,” he said into his chest.

            “You mean your kid can just walk through anything? Cas –”

            “Sam –”

            Sam raised his hands, palms upward, showing no harm. “It’s just – that kind of power. It’s scary.”

            For the first time, Castiel didn’t look as though he disagreed. Seeing his expression, Dean said, “But we’re gonna find a way to save him. We will.” Cas nodded.

            “Come back with us,” said Sam.

            Cas looked down again. “I…can’t.”

            “Why?”

            He sighed deeply. “We are already compromised. I can feel a presence. More than one, actually. Surrounding us. Nothing can get in, but they can try to wait us out.”

            Meg flew at him then, turning her fists on him, pounding furiously against his chest. “You bastard! Why didn’t you tell me?”

            “I had hoped I was wrong. Or that they might leave.”

            Sam and Dean stared at Meg. She seemed to be losing control, her small frame flailing wildly with the punches she threw, tears streaming down her face. _So demons can cry, too,_ Sam thought to himself. Castiel didn’t try to fight back or shield himself; he only looked down at her with a palpable sadness in his eyes. “Meg, why are you crying?” he asked.

            “Damn you! Because I love you, and I don’t want to leave again, and you let me think I wouldn’t have to!” She swung even harder. Finally, the brothers grabbed her by the arms and pulled her off as she crumpled into herself, sobbing.

            Cas stared at her. “What did you say?” He squinted his eyes, tilted his head to one side. Meg had collapsed into a corner, her arms folded around her knees, her body shaking. “You’ve never said that to me before.”

            “I’ve never said it to anyone, you ass. I’m not supposed to feel this.” She swiped a hand across her face, smearing tears, and sniffed deeply. “I don’t _know how_ to feel this.” She looked up at them all, her face shining with desperation. “What do I _do_?”

            “Get down,” Castiel ordered. Meg’s confusion dissolved as all of them dropped to the floor, just as the feeling of another presence hummed too loudly for any of them to ignore, and the door swung open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song lyric at the beginning is from "Room at the Top" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.
> 
> This chapter contains a mini fan fix, as I have always been bothered by the implication that, unless it happened off screen and was never mentioned again, the Winchesters never told Cas what happened to Meg. I feel like Sam especially would have understood that he needed to know. And I think Cas would have needed to work through his grief about it. This led me down a rabbit hole of feels that I just had to ride out for the rest of the chapter.


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